Grande sonate 'Les quatre âges'

Grande sonate: Les quatre âges (French for Grand sonata: The Four Ages) is a four movement sonata for piano by Charles-Valentin Alkan. The sonata's title refers to the subtitles given to each movement, portraying a man at the ages of 20, 30, 40, and 50. The work was published in 1847, dedicated to the composer's father, Alkan Morhange (who died eight years later, in 1855).

The sequence of movements is unlike the typical classical piano sonata, in that they become progressively slower; after the lively 20 ans (years), marked 'très vite' (very fast) and the complex 30 ans, subtitled Quasi-Faust, and marked 'assez vite' (quite fast), 40 ans is more sedate, marked 'lentement' (slowly), and 50 ans, dark and pessimistic in mood, is marked 'extrêmement lent' (extremely slow).